The tablet market is expanding every bit as rapidly as netbooks did when they first arrived, and then some. MSI has announced their entry into the market today, and it's a very different breed of tablet compared to the largely Android-based units available. The new WindPad 110W has a heck of a lot going on under the hood, including some new kit from AMD.

Unlike the Android-based tablets that have been multiplying in the market, the WindPad 110W is running a full-on Windows 7 Home Premium installation, and a peek under the hood reveals a beastly amount of hardware for a tablet.

At the center of the 110W is the AMD Z-01 APU, a 1GHz dual-core processor with a TDP of just 5.9 watts. Essentially a lower-clocked, much lower-power version of the E-350 we're so fond of, the Z-01 brings with it Radeon HD 6250 graphics with 80 stream processors clocked at 276MHz. Strapped to the single-channel memory controller is 4GB of DDR3, which should be more than enough for what the WindPad is intended for.

The rest of the 110W is no slouch either, with a 32GB SSD integrated, 802.11b/g/n networking, and Bluetooth 3.0 support. The 10" screen is an IPS panel with a 1280x800 resolution. External connectivity is handled by a mini-HDMI port, an SD card reader, and a single USB 2.0 port. If there's one place where the WindPad falters compared to other tablets, though, it's the integrated cameras: both the front-facing and rear-facing cameras are only 1.3 megapixel, miles behind the rest of the pack.

MSI ships it with a two-cell, 4200mAh battery, a Trusted Platform Module, and personalized software for ease of use with touch control. That's important since Windows 7's touch-based controls still leave something to be desired. At 1.87 lbs. it's not too heavy but will definitely be noticeable.

Presales are starting now at Newegg and Amazon, for a reasonable MSRP of $599.

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37 Comments

i might buy this i.s.o my ipad2 but only when the OS would be more tablet oriented, i am affraid that win7 just won't cut it with the features like other tablets have, but then again not sure since i dedn't test it yet.

on the other hand its easier with all the windows apps that are out there and common used...Reply

<sarcasm>So let me summarize: you are playing HD movies on a tablet, and your biggest problem is that it has artifacts. Man, do I admire you....

Ok, I'm not a big movie fan, I rarely ever watch them, and that's in a proper cinema. There I'd be pissed off to see artifacts, but I usually don't...

Would I ever crave for watching movies on the go, I wouldn't give sh*t about the picture quality, given the resolution is at least 800x480...

But I have an idea: Get yourself a 22" HD LED display, and get a sizey UPS to power it, while you travel. Now you all have to do is to duct tape the tablet to the display, and connect them via HDMI. I bet image quality will be good enough. Oh, also be sure to get an IPS panel display...

What is the obsession with high resolution on ~10" display. I've worked on 1080p 15.6" laptop before and it was god awful. I have a perfect eye sight but after a week of using it I probably needed some glasses. I work with a lot of spreadsheets and generally if one does not fit in 720p it won't fit in 1080p. If all you do on a tablet is watch movie, then be my guest. For everyone else 1080p on a 10" screen is a waste (burden).Reply

Making a screen high resolution doesn't mean that all text on it has to be small and hard to read. The best example is the difference between the iPhone 4 and it's predecessors; Apple quadrupled the resolution without changing the scale. You can adjust the scale of text globally in windows, and android scales everything. If the text on your device is too small, change the scale. If you can't change the scale, it's a software problem, not a hardware problem.

Eyestrain doesn't cause bad eyesight. That's a myth that has lived on for far too long.Reply

Looking at a screen is no different from looking at a sheet of paper at a similar distance and under similar lighting, but eyestrain can cause problems, same as straining any other part of your body. It's usually temporary (same as any other part of your body), but as you get older things are more likely to "snap".

I know a professional photographer (in his 50s) who went from normal eyesight to having to wear glasses (presbyopia, right eye only) after an intensive 2-day photoshoot. There was probably already something wrong with his eye, but clearly the extra effort caused some damage that his body just gave up on repairing.Reply